Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, has initiated a lawsuit against World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm backed by the Trump family, alleging that the company froze his $WLFI token holdings without justification, made false representations, and issued threats against him. According to the lawsuit, World Liberty's management engaged in an 'illegal scheme to seize property' by locking up Sun's tokens, which he had purchased after being approached by the company's team in 2024. The lawsuit states that Sun invested $45 million in $WLFI tokens due to the project's association with the Trump family and its claims of promoting decentralized finance, a cause close to Sun's heart.

However, when Sun refused to continue investing in 2025, including a request to mint World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin, the company's attitude towards him became hostile. The lawsuit alleges that World Liberty made fraudulent misrepresentations about the economic rights and liberties associated with purchasing $WLFI tokens, including statements about token holder rights and the freedom to transact. It is also claimed that World Liberty exerted centralized control over its tokens, contrary to its decentralized finance claims. In August 2025, the company modified the smart contract governing $WLFI to add a 'blacklisting' function, allowing it to freeze tokens in specific wallets without disclosing this change to investors or putting it to a governance vote.

The lawsuit argues that this modification enabled World Liberty to freeze Sun's tokens, thereby pressuring him to mint $200 million of the company's USD1 stablecoin on the Tron blockchain and artificially propping up the market price of $WLFI tokens held by the company's founders and treasury. Furthermore, the complaint alleges that World Liberty's ability to issue, freeze, and reassign tokens may be subject to regulatory scrutiny, potentially qualifying the firm as a money transmitter under U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rules. The lawsuit also includes allegations of overt threats made by World Liberty's co-founder, Chase Herro, against Sun and his businesses.

In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial stated that the company had no comment.